Highly visible shame

Singling out a pupil using a bright bib is reminiscent of David Copperfield

David Copperfield was made to wear a placard at school: “Take care of him. He bites.” The school was utterly grotesque: the hoarse-voiced bully Mr Creakle, and his violent stooge, the wooden-legged Tungay, even David’s friend Traddle, drawing skeletons in the margins of his books.

Hi-vis jackets are a staple of health’n’safety, children often wearing them in the street, like convicts. Now they are seen as a feared livery – not quite the Scarlet Letter, but shamefully bright bibs of the Nanny State.